Does this mean she's eating too much?

[Miss Lucy]

My 7/8 month old poops about 4 or 5 times a day and I was wondering if this means that she is eating too much.

I feed her Nutrience at the recommended amount . It states on the packet that the quality of the food ensures smaller stools.
Well...........hers are not small.

What a weird subject, but I hope someone could help me out here. I am a bit worried.

Thanks
Miss Lucy.

[Eyerman]

You are not alone! My pup is 4 months old and poops quite frequently as well. They are also the size of my 2 year olds. I think it healthy for them to "go potty" frequently as long as the stool is firm and appears to be healthy. I would not worry about it. Just make sure you are following the food guidelines on the bag of dog food.

[RottiMomCT]

My foster puppy is 8 months old, and he poops each time he is taken outside (3-4 times a day). Not huge amounts, regular sized (would you like that super sized??!! ), good firm poops. He gets 6-7 cups of Nutro Natural Choice daily, split between 2 feedings.

He gets probably 2 hours of good solid spaz sessions of play daily with my 3 yr old male. Except for the past week - I have had to be the 'other dog' in terms of play as my dog is a bit under the weather (see thread in Vet's Corner "Yuck...Diarrhea!".

Anyways - how tall is she and what does she weigh? Does she appear thin or fat?? If neither, have her checked of parasites in the intestines/tummy...

Good luck...keep us posted!!

[spidey]

Is your puppy at a healthy weight? Are the stools normal? If so, I wouldn't worry about it. Just as there is a very wide range of "normal" for frequency of bowel movements for people (from more than three times/day to once a week), I'm sure the range of "normal" for dogs is quite wide, too. I'd also caution that the guidelines on the bag of food are just that: guidelines - they should be adjusted as necessary for each individual dog (exercise, metabolism, height, build, etc. all play a role in how much food is the right amount for any given dog). Some dogs will need far less than the guidelines, some need more (but far fewer, IMHO, since those guidelines always seem to be on the high end of the scale). Also, how many meals a day is the puppy getting?

[Miss Lucy]

hi there,a thanks for your replies.

Shilo gets two meals a day, some in the morning and then before she goes to bed. Around 3/4 cups a day.

I think she is overweight, she is around 75lbs, we aren't too sure because I can't pick her up and my husband and her go over the limit on the scales.

I have been walking her daily and feel I am controlling her food.
She always seems hungry, I discovered the other week that she had let herself into the kitchen and cleaned up 500grams of butter off the butter plate, which I had left on the bench!!!!!!!
I could not believe that, even flies don't eat butter like that.
LOL.

I thought that maybe that amount of poop may mean shes eating too much.

Miss Lucy

[rottnkidd]

Miss Lucy - If your pup is passing large volume stools several times a day, you've got to ask yourself how much of this food is actually being digested. I'm thinking this product contains too many fillers or grains that he's unable to digest. Perhaps considering another premium brand would be helpful. There are
many posts in this forum regarding the better brands to feed.
Good luck to you!
kathy

[Miss Lucy]

Good point there rottnkid, the food I am feeding Shilo is Nutrience, and was something I looked into awhile ago and got comments from the forum on. I was initially feeding Science Diet, I thought this was the best available cos thats was the vets advised. Anyway I looked around for something with real meat or chicken and not by products and came up with Nutrience.

Could be a good idea, how would I know what fillers are in it?

We can't get alot of the stuff you get in USA in regards to dog food.

Thanks
Miss Lucy

[Barbara Surplus]

Miss Lucy, if you want to see small stools, try feeding raw or home-cooked foods. Just about everything is squeezed out of that food before it makes it out the other end of the dog. :o They smell quite a bit differently as well. It smells like...well...what poop SHOULD smell like.

We looked after our nephew's Rottweiler a while back for the weekend. His stools were enormous and, quite frankly, smelled revolting compared to my boys' (never thought I would ever, ever say that...:D). Guess my nose has simply been atuned...
Barbara

[CarolineS]

Originally posted by Miss Lucy

Could be a good idea, how would I know what fillers are in it?

Since I don't know what's available where you live, here are some general guidelines for judging a food. The first five ingredients listed on the dog food label make up the bulk of the food. A really premium food has two or three protein sources (meat, fish, poultry, egg) in the first five ingredients. None of them should be byproducts; whole protein sources or meals are preferable.

You will see some grains in the first five ingredients; you have to have them because dog food cannot be processed into kibble if it contains more than 50% meat...something to do with the moisture content, I think. Grains in kibble do supply a source of energy to dogs and a small amount of protein. Of the grains, the most highly digestible are corn, rice, oats and wheat. It is best to try and find them in their whole or meal forms. Grain sources that are not easily digested and are mainly fillers are whey, soy flour, soybean meal, corn-gluten meal, wheat gluten and wheat middlings.

Some fiber is added for intestinal health, bran and beet pulp being two common ones. It should not appear in the top five ingredients because none of this is digestible and too high a content will interfere with the absorption of some nutrients.

You will also need to look at the type of fat in the kibble. The cheaper kibbles will add only animal fats because it enhances the flavor of the dog food and it is a cheap source of calories. The better kibbles will also add a source of linoleic acid which is an essential fatty acid for dogs. It is found in vegetable oils with the highest amounts being found in safflower and flaxseed oil.

It is also better to look for a dog food preserved with natural ingredients like Vitamin C and E instead of chemical preservatives.

Hopefully, this will help you judge those foods that you do have available in New Zealand.

[Miss Lucy]

Thanks for that info, i checked out the ingrediants , heres whats listed:

chicken meat, ground maize, brewers rice, poulty fat, dried beet pulp, hydrolysed chicken liver flavouring, yeast, dried egg, salt, dicalcium phosphate, potassium chloride, choline chloride, DL methionine, L-lysine, glucosamine sulphate, chondroltin sulphate, dried kelp, dried carob, dried fenugreek, dried rosemary, dried ginger, dried turmeric, dried rfennel, rosemary extracts, ferrous sulphate, zinc oxide, sodium selenite, copper sulphate, manganous oxide and calcium iodate.

Hope I have spelt everything right. What do you think of the ingrediants?

Looking forward to hearing back
Miss Lucy.

[CarolineS]

Chicken meat is good, but although it is listed first, it is deceiving. Foods are weighed for listing on the label before processing. When processed, the liquid from the foods is removed. A lot of the chicken is made up of liquid, once it is removed there is very little chicken left. The grains, on the other hand, are very dry to begin with so little is lost from them. I'd bet that if the foods were weighed after processing, that chicken would be about third on the list, giving you a truer picture of the ingredient proportions.

Ground maize, I assume, is corn? It's not something we see in dog food over here, but I seem to remember it is corn or a type of corn. When you see corn this high on the list, you can usually assume they are using it as a protein source as well as a carbohydrate source. Corn is not a good protein source since it is missing two of the essential amino acids that dogs need.

Brewer's rice is a fragment of rice; it is what is left over after whatever the liquor industry needs, for brewing beer and liquor, is taken out. Whole rice would be a better choice.

Poultry fat is a source of cheap calories for your dog. It has very little in the way of nutrients. Dogs do need fat but unless they are working dogs, they don't really need it in this amount.

Beet pulp is a source of fiber and I don't like to see it in the top five ingredients. There is no scientific proof that dogs even need fiber in their diet and to have it fifth in the list is too much of it in my opinion. It is used mainly as a cheap filler to give a dog a feeling of fullness after eating, but contains nothing in the way of nutrients. Beet pulp is one fiber source that can interfere with the absorption of calcium, phosphorus, zinc and iron. Beet pulp is probably the best "stool hardner" there is because is absorbs a ton of water from the intestines. Some people seem to judge a dog food by how hard the end product is.

I don't see a source of linolenic acid (omega 3). This is an essential fatty acid and must be balanced with the proper amount of omega 6. The maize will provide a lot of omega 6's, but very little in the way of omega 3's. This can lead to itchy skin.

I see this food has token amounts of herbs and glucosamine/chondroitin. Usually when these appear in dog foods, the food is advertised as being "natural" or being good for arthritis. The amounts of all of these ingredients are usually so small they are pretty useless in treating anything.

You did ask. ;) Don't panic, dogs are pretty adaptable and can get by on most foods, but better is available. This food is pretty typical of what is sold in most large chain grocery and pet stores. In North America, the better foods are found in small, independent pet stores and it might be the same over there. Why don't you do a search on the internet on some of the premium foods you've seen mentioned in the forums and see if any of them have distributors anywhere in NZ. If not, perhaps NZ has some brands we haven't heard of that would be comparable.

[POPPYHONEY]

Miss Lucy,
I feed my puppies with Best Choice for puppies (it is Made in Germany). Diego Poops twice a day, in the morning and in the evening. He eats 3-4 times a day (he could not eat a large amount in one meal) and the stool is not as much as what he eats. Compare to Diego's first day at our home, which he has been fed Precise for puppy when he was with the breeder, his stools now far lesser.
For your comparisson, here's the ingridients list :
Poultry flour, rice flour, corn flour, linseed, poultry fat, turnip fibre, fish, yeast, dried egg, vit A, D3, E, C, B1, B2, Folic Acid, Pantothenic Acid, Nicotinic Acid, B6, B12, Choline, Biotin, K3, mineral : iron,copper, manganese, zinc, iodine, selenium.

[Miss Lucy]

Thanks ever so MUCH for the replies,I shall go off to the shops again and check out the ingrediants on the packets.

I looked in the supermarket last night and a lot of the foods there for dogs didn't even have any sort of meat in it.
I can't believe that some company's would even bother making or selling this stuff for dogs.
Dogs aren't vegetarians are they.?

One food in the Supermarket that sounded good was Purina, though they only came in tiny little biscuits.
I thought that I might buy a big bag and mix it up with cooked chicken necks.. Should offer all the right stuff.

I am going to search more pet stores soon.

Thanks everyone one.
I found your information most valuable CarolineS, thanks.

Miss Lucy.

[Miss Lucy]

Hi there everyone, I have spent the last few days feeding my two girls Purina One Dog biscuits with cooked up chicken necks and low and behold, they aren't so hungry anymore and also they don't poop so often, and they are very small. YAHOO.

With this dog food they actually prefer to eat it over and above everything else. It is alot more expensive that other brands but it stops them begging and I don't have such a big clean up job afterwards.

Anyone have any easy homemade receipes I could make to mix with the biscuits. I have had a brief look at the old letters.

Thanks you everyone for your comments.

Miss Lucy

[CarolineS]

I'm not sure if we have a language barrier here or not. When you refer to "dog biscuits", are you talking about something that is meant to be fed as a nutritionally complete food or are you talking about something that is meant to be fed as a treat?

Also, if the chicken necks have bones in them, you really shouldn't be cooking them. I only feed meat without bones and I don't feed it raw, so you'd have to ask one of the other members how to prepare and feed raw chicken necks safely.